


Connections

by mystery_knight



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Family, Gen, community: asoiaf_exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-31 00:57:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1025444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystery_knight/pseuds/mystery_knight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brandon discusses his father's ambition for the Starks and consoles Lyanna over her betrothal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Connections

First Lord Rickard had sent Ned to foster with Jon Arryn of the Eyrie. Then he betrothed Brandon to a daughter of Riverrun. Now he was arranging Lyanna’s betrothal to the young lord of Storm’s End. Brandon much preferred riding and swordplay to his studies with the maester, but he could not help noticing that Winterfell would be more connected to the South than ever before in its history. He voiced his observation one evening at dinner. 

“Aye,” his lord father said. “I hope that it will do us good. Brandon the Builder raised great castles and Brandon the Shipwright sailed the world, yet what have we Starks accomplished since? We’ve held our lands and nothing more. I hope that new blood and new connections will strengthen us and restore what was lost.”

Maester Walys chimed in, “There is nothing to say that the North could not one day have a great center of trade and learning of its own. The land will never be as fertile as the Reach but it can support a much larger population than it has at present. Those of its youth with an aptitude for music and crafts wander away to Oldtown and Lannisport, leaving it culturally bereft, but think of how the North will thrive if they stay.”

Brandon laughed at the old maester’s passion but he was bemused by his father’s ambition – and what it might demand of him. “Am I to become Brandon the Singer or Brandon the Scholar then? I fear not. No, the only glory I can give my House will be won with my sword.”

“Who do you intend to war with?” his father asked. 

“There will be some enemy,” Brandon said airily. “There always is.” That much he knew of history. “Perhaps I will lead a great host against the wildings.”

“We have been fending off wildings for eight thousand years,”Lord Rickard said. “Are the Starks no more than border sentries?”

Brandon could see his father’s point – but to his mind the remedy would be to conquer one of their Southron neighbors and thereby increase their holdings and power. However he was to wed one of those Southron neighbors and Ned was in the custody of another. And they would need ships to make war against the Iron Isles.

“Not all power comes from swords, my lord,” said Maester Walys. “House Hightower fields only a few thousand men and does fealty to House Tyrell, yet who would deny their power?”

“Enough,” Brandon surrendered, laughing. “You are right, Maester. And, you, Father.” He sipped his strongwine thoughtfully. “What of Benjen? What have you planned for him?”

“What would you do, to further the goal?” Lord Rickard asked. 

“Dornish women inherit ahead of their younger brothers,” Brandon recalled. “I suppose I would try to find him a Dornish heiress.”

Lord Rickard looked pleased. “Very good, Brandon. As it happens, the Prince of Dorne does have a daughter but the child is too young as yet to go making marriage plans. There are other options for the time being.”

“You mean to foster Ben out?”

“I hope to speak with Tywin Lannister about taking Benjen as his squire.”

Brandon’s only thoughts about Lord Whent’s grand tourney so far had been to wonder how he would fare against the reknowned knights and to anticipate all the Southron beauties he would bed. Now he contemplated the schemes that would be hatched when so many lords gathered together. Politics is the game men play when they are too old to joust and wench, he thought. 

“Why can’t I be fostered instead of being married off?” Lyanna demanded later that evening when Brandon mentioned their father’s plans for Benjen. 

“You’re getting to the age where a girl needs to be married.”

“It’s not fair. Who decided that girls had to become wives when they were scarcely women grown?”

Brandon knew exactly why lords preferred to marry their daughters young. A maiden kept too long in her father’s house often came to her marriage bed no maiden at all, and no lord liked to think of lowborn singers and roguish sellswords having his bride before him. But he knew from past experience that Lyanna would fly into a fury if he tried to explain. 

“Just think, Lya: when you are married, there will be no one to tell you what to do and what not to do. You’ll be Lady of Storm’s End and mistress of the stormlands.”

“And Robert will be lord and master.”

“He loves you, Lyanna. I have no doubt you’ll make him your slave as you’ve done to me and Ben and Ned."

“A man treats his wife different than he treats his sister. I’m old enough to know that. You say he loves me. Ned told me that, too, yet he couldn’t deny that Robert has loved many women.”

“He has had many women, I doubt he has loved any of them. Lya, the act of bedding a woman has naught to do with a man’s emotions.”

“I don’t think I like men very much,” his sister said, “Including you.”

Brandon grinned at her. “You don’t mean that. You love me.”

She raised her chin stubbornly. “I hate you.”

Brandon pounced on her. He tickled her until she was gasping for breath and her shrieks of laughter brought two guardsmen running. Tall Tom and Owayne were relieved to find their lord’s only daughter was not being abducted by wildings after all. The guards had scarcely been dismissed when Lyanna launched her counter-attack.

Finally, breathless, Brandon and Lyanna laid side by side in silence. “I’m scared, Brandon,” Lyanna confessed. “I’m not ready to be anyone’s wife.”

“It’ll be all right, Lyana. It’ll be a year or two before the wedding. This is only a betrothal.” He squeezed her hand. “Ten, twenty years from now when you have a dozen tall sons and pretty daughters, we’ll think back to this and laugh.”

He thought of Barbrey as he waited for his little sister to fall asleep. His betrothal to Catelyn Tully had been arranged years ago yet he had not told Barbrey of it until she’d begun to speak of marriage. Brandon had never lied to her, yet he had deceived her all the same.

“I love being with you,” he’d whispered to her so many times, knowing she would hear it as _I love you_. 

“My father arranged the match,” he’d said, knowing she’d think he would rather marry another if but only he could. 

He was fond of Barbrey and he enjoyed her company but he had always known he would marry another woman and she would marry another man. He’d never loved her and he would not go back to her after he was wed. He fully intended to honor his marriage vows and his lady wife. He prayed that Robert Baratheon was the same sort of man.


End file.
